Hydraulic Fluid
by MarquetteFan33
Summary: Can personality cores feel the same emotions a human does?  Can they cry?  Oneshot alternate "ending" to Portal 2.  One-sided Chelley if you want to see it that way.


Hydraulic Fluid

Summary: Can personality cores feel the same emotions a human does? Can they cry? Oneshot alternate "ending" to Portal 2. One-sided Chelley if you want to see it that way.

AN: Welcome to my first Portal fanfiction! Actually, it's my first fanfiction in general, but I've been a reader in many different fandoms for far longer. I just finished playing through Portal 2, and I absolutely adored every minute of it! This idea came to me during a long work shift, and I couldn't lose this writing idea (as I've lost so many others), so I wrote the beginning out on a napkin. Written over two days, on and off, and un-beta'd. Constructive criticism appreciated, and I hope you enjoy!

It was a turret…

He'd seen it all. He'd been following her through this maze, acting as a consistent (yet almost unbearably talkative) companion while they were trying to reach GLaDOS. She rounded the corner, expecting an empty corridor, but found that the little red beam of death discovered her first.

"Hello," The cute, childish voice that sounded from it indicated it found her—

bangbangbang

The barrage of bullets left its cold hull, hitting her dead on. There was a look of complete surprise as her body slammed into the floor.

The turret even had the nerve to ask the jovial phrase "Are you still there?"

"Chell!" Wheatley yelled. Maneuvering on his Management Rail over to her, he looked down from above and saw the puddle of dark red slowly spreading from her limp form.

"W-Wheatley?" She quietly murmured, her grey eyes staring up at him.

"You can speak? I've never heard you say anything to me or anyone else before. What happened? Are you alright? …I guess that was the better question to ask." She looked up at him with conflicting signals. Even he could tell that her eyes reflected pure pain, but she maintained a small smile on her face. What was going on?

He took a moment away from her face to assess her overall condition. Looking down at the white Aperture Science brand tanktop, he noticed three blood-red lilies spreading outward. One close to her right shoulder, the other two were in the upper torso area, likely in her right lung. His basic knowledge told him that a human's lungs were essential to life, but he couldn't find the function in his immediate memory banks.

"Okay, okay, Chell… keep looking at me, okay?" Wheatley began to say in a panic. "You're going to be fine. You have to be fine. You're the only person to treat me like… well, a person… but I'm not…" Chell's breathing began accelerating, panicking Wheatley further. He also noticed a thin line of blood seeping from the corner of her mouth. "Chell, hold on, I'm coming down. I don't care if I could die… even though I did this once already and didn't die, but maybe that was a fluke… oh bloody hell, here I come!"

He dislodged himself from the Management rail, coming down on the floor with a metallic cling less than a foot from her head. He was undamaged (Aperture Science sure knew how to make things that last just about anything), but he landed mere inches from shattering her skull. "Oh thank God I calculated that correctly enough, or that could have ended worse yet…"

He spun himself around and situated himself so his bright blue optic was facing directly at her. The red puddle had spread further, causing her shiny brown hair to have a red tinge to it. He almost couldn't stand it. While he could stomach looking at her distressed face, he couldn't handle looking further down where the bullets were taking her life away.

She'd survived so much already… she couldn't die yet, could she?

As soon as he'd thought that idea, her breath hitched again, her eyes slowly beginning to close, those beautiful grey eyes he wanted nothing more to see more of, to stare into, to uncover the secrets that remained locked behind them…

There was some liquid leaking out the creases of her eyes as she turned to look at him. Her involuntary tears streamed down the sides of her face, moving over the contours, leaving a small streak where they once were. Wheatley accessed his memory, finding that a human shed tears usually in cases of pain or emotional distress. This caused him to panic further.

"No, no, no, no, no, Chell, keep your eyes open, please… please? I know there aren't any medical supplies around, not that I'd know where they are or how to use them since I don't have appendages like you do and I'm sorry for everything since I don't know how to save you and…"

He immediately quieted when he saw her arm move. With her remaining strength, she moved her arm closer to him, closer and closer until her hand was touching the left side of his core. He internally smiled at the sweet gesture, since it gave him that tiny ounce of comfort he needed that moment. As he took his optic off of her arm, he looked back to her face, growing paler by the moment, as she silently mouthed one single word to him:

"Thanks."

Then finally, her eyes closed for good, never to open again.

Wheatley remained completely still, hoping for some chance of her beautiful grey eyes opening once again, but no such thing happened.

"Chell? Chell? CHELL! No! How could this happen? We were so close… She's so close… Why?" He mournfully said. He'd never grown emotionally attached to any test subject before, so why her? And why did she have to be taken away so quickly? She'd only said two words to him, one being his name! Wait, maybe she was still alive, but just unconscious! He had to find someone who could help, but who else was in the facility…

Oh no…

"GLaDOS? GLaDOS! I know you can hear me!" He began yelling.

"Oh, so you decided to use an actual name in reference to me rather than some indistinct pronoun." She stated over the loudspeakers in an almost sickenly sweet manner. Wheatley internally cringed over her joyful tone of voice. "Why the change?—"

"You have to help her…" He quickly interrupted.

"Why should I? She killed me first, if you hadn't heard; I was merely returning the favor." GLaDOS replied, switching back to that cold, heartless, monotone voice he couldn't stand hearing with his sensors.

"But… but she—she isn't dead yet—she's survived situations just as bad! She's been shot, nearly incinerated, fallen from unimaginable heights, been hit by the thermal discouragement beam, and I was there, it must have really hurt—"

"Oh shut up, moron. She's already dead—"

"Don't call me a moron! For the last bloody time!" He raged back. He was tired of hearing that sort of comment over and over again. He'd concede he wasn't always the smartest, and made some mistakes, but it couldn't be that bad, right?

"Whatever halfwit. Just so you know, she's already dead. Even if I desired to help her, and I most certainly don't, I can't. Do you understand? I can't reanimate the dead." GLaDOS retorted.

He stared forward in silence. She really was dead? Chell? GLaDOS had killed her, utilizing some bloody turret that got a lucky shot.

Suddenly, he noticed a strange sensation coursing through his circuitry. He couldn't place it, as he hadn't encountered it before. His simulated emotions created this incredibly painful feeling, as though he was sick, despite it being completely impossible. He was, by all technicalities, a non-living machine who could not experience such biological functions, but he felt this must be as close as he could come.

"Wh—what is this?" He looked down, noticing that a puddle of fluid had collected under his metal core. Where did that come from? What was it? What was going on?

Was something wrong with him?

He immediately began to panic, causing more of the fluid to flow outward, similarly to the blood that had pooled around Chell's lifeless form. He couldn't explain his reaction, as he'd never encountered anything like it before. He started yelling, switching back and forth between a simple word or two, or a simple yell that racked his entire frame.

"What the hell is wrong with you, moron? She was just another test subject. I can't comprehend why you're reacting to this in such a… _human_ manner." GLaDOS cut in. "You're acting completely inferior—not that I expected any different—and you're spilling hydraulic fluid all over the floor as a result of your unexplainable exertions. Quit it, shut the hell up for once, and give me a chance to put you back on your Management Rail."

Wheatley began to cool down slightly, ceasing the nearly consistent yelling he'd engaged in just moments before. It was just hydraulic fluid? He ran a quick internal diagnostic on his components, and found that his hydraulic fluid levels were lowered, due to a couple of cracks from when he tore himself off of the rail out of desperation to help Chell.

Absolutely bloody fantastic. Here he had been, thinking he was like a human. Robots can't cry, he thought, as another painful difference between he and Chell set in.

Even if she was still alive, she probably thought of him as nothing more than the bumbling, irritating personality core he'd always been. Wheatley had felt as though there had been a true connection between them, a strong bond of friendship. Maybe he really was a delusional moron. Regardless of anything that happened, he'd have to continue on almost as though nothing had occurred, possibly with a new test subject and new objectives to complete throughout the facility.

But, if that's the case, why did he feel as if there was this gaping hole in his programming and memories he didn't know how to fix?

"Come on, moron." GLaDOS said before grabbing him from above and beginning to reattach him to his rail. "There's more science to do." He didn't even have the mental strength to retort her comment.

His last vision of Chell was the red lily her blood left on the floor before she was dragged off to the incinerator.


End file.
